Guides

Archive for May, 2019

Detention facilities are overflowing with migrants because of the surge in people, many of them children, crossing the southern border illegally, and Border Patrol is struggling to handle the crisis.

More than 200,000 migrants illegally crossed the southern border in March and April, and more than two-thirds of them were either children or adults with children, according to UPI.

“Our immigration system is full, and we are well beyond our capacity at every stage of the process,” Kevin McAleenan, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told a House committee last week.

Many of those crossing are seeking asylum, forcing ICE to release them to a network of migrant shelters in communities along the border. But with insufficient space, Border Patrol is beginning to release asylum seekers into border communities, often with little to no warning.

That new policy has rattled volunteer coordinators who try to house and feed the migrants.

“Sometimes the agents tell us to expect 50 migrants, but we end up with 150. Other times, a bus filled with migrants will show up unannounced at a shelter,” said Ashley Heidebrecht, a social work student and intern at the Borderlands Rainbow Coalition, a nonprofit that provides meals to migrants.

El Paso’s Hope Border Institute, a think tank that supports the humane treatment of migrants, has criticized the Border Patrol’s handling of the surge.

“The Border Patrol is not thinking strategically,” Dylan Corbett, director of the think tank, told UPI. “The agency doesn’t seem to have any goals and is just operating as things come up, day to day. I really don’t know who is calling the shots.”

It wouldn’t be a first. Guzman, who is lodged at a federal correctional facility in New York after being convicted on 10 counts of drug trafficking and conspiracy to murder, escaped two Mexican prisons in the past.

Those fears have prompted prison officials to deny requests from El Chapo’s lawyers to prove at least two hours of outdoor recreation every week for the former ringleader of the Sinaloa Cartel, as well as access to other accommodations like earplugs and access to the commissary.

“Violate the 8th Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment as well as the fundamental norms of human decency,” his lawyers wrote to a judge in recent weeks, ABC30 reports.

Federal officials pushed back, citing fears of another breakout.

“He sees the window closing because he’s about to get sentenced,” said ABC News Consultant and former FBI Agent Brad Garrett. “Maybe he thinks that his best chance to get away again would be while he’s still in New York.”

President Trump made the bold claim that former FBI Director James Comey and former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe were guilty of treason during a wild press conference Thursday.

The assertion came after NBC reporter Peter Alexander pointed out that the “Constitution says treason is punishable by death,” and then said, “You’ve accused your adversaries of treason. Who specifically are you accusing of treason?”

Trump responded, “Well I think a number of people. And I think what you look is that they have unsuccessfully tried to take down the wrong person.”

So who’s he talking about?

“If you look at Comey, if you look at McCabe, if you look at people probably higher than that.”

It’s unclear who is higher than the director of the FBI. Former President Obama, whom Trump has accused of playing a role in the investigation into Trump’s campaign?

Trump didn’t say whether any of them should be executed, but his response was cringe-worthy. He also does not appear to understand what treason is.

Treason refers to conspiring to overthrow the government or aiding international groups that are enemies of the U.S.

The irony is that Trump has been accused of working on behalf of Russia, a persistent threat to the U.S.

A Border Patrol agent who worked out of the Tucson Station is accused of sexually assaulting at least three women he met online over the past seven years that he has worked with the federal agency.

Steven Charles Holmes, 33, was arrested Tuesday and jailed and has been placed on administrative duties pending the outcome of the case, Tucson.com reports.

“We do not tolerate misconduct on, or off duty, and will fully cooperate with all investigations of alleged misconduct by our personnel,” Customs and Border Protection wrote in a statement.

The investigation began after a woman told Tucson Police that she was sexually assaulted by Holmes after meeting him on a dating app. Police said a further investigation turned up multiple victims with similar reports from 2012 to 2019.

Police emphasized the investigation is ongoing and encourage women to come forward if they were sexually assaulted by Holmes.

President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and so-called fixer Michael Cohen exchanged hundreds of phone calls and text messages with a Russian-linked firm beginning on Election Day in 2016, according to newly unsealed court documents obtained by several news outlets.

The FBI also discovered that Cohen, who is now serving a three-year prison sentence, received $500,000 for consulting work from Columbus Nova, which is connected to the influential Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. The company’s CEO Andrew Intrater introduced Cohen to Vekselberg. Vekselberg and Intrater are cousins and business associates.

After the FBI began investigating what appeared to be suspicious emails and bank transfers from Cohen’s accounts, special counsel Robert Mueller followed up with search warrants between July and November 2017 to determine whether the exchanges violated any laws, including wire fraud and money laundering.

The new records also reveal that Cohen received more than $280,000 from Trump since February 2017.

The revelations are important because they show how early Mueller and the FBI were aware of suspicious activity involving Cohen.